1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electronic designs. More specifically, the invention relates to apparatus and methods for controlling and/or presenting multiple component connections of an electronic design, especially when the electronic design is created with the use of system design tools.
2. Description of Related Art
A system design tool, such as SOPC (System-on-a-Programmable-Chip) Builder available from Altera Corporation of San Jose, Calif., is generally used to create an electronic design. The system design tool may also be used to facilitate implementation of the electronic design in a target hardware device (e.g., programmable chip). Typically, the electronic design includes various interconnected components. For example, the electronic design may include interconnected master components and slave components. Controlling the connections between various components and/or how they are presented to a user (e.g., designer) would be helpful in creating the electronic design.
Conventional mechanisms for controlling and/or presenting component interconnections are limited. More specifically, system design tools present the user with only a physical representation of component interconnections. For example, connections between masters and slaves shown on a patch panel represent fixed (physical) links in the SOPC system. The physical representation of component interconnections merely conveys to the user information on how the component connections actually appear in hardware. This information may either be too much or too little for the user to efficiently use to create the electronic design. For example, the physical representations may lack information on which physical master port would be suitable for connection to a particular physical slave port. The user would be burdened with making the correct connections. For another example, the physical representations may cause confusion by including too much unnecessary detail. Making the appropriate connections can sometimes be burdensome and error prone.
Consequently, it would be beneficial to have improved mechanisms and techniques for controlling and/or presenting component interconnections, thereby, allowing for the efficient creation of the electronic design.